Crackdown 3

Crackdown 3 retains the core gameplay of Crackdown and Crackdown 2, featuring a number of different organizations controlling the city of New Providence that players need to take down by killing their bosses and Kingpins, destroying their facilities, and destabilizing their infrastructures. Players can use a variety of weapons to achieve this end, from guns to grenades to rocket launchers, as well as their own physical power. Players can also drive any vehicle found in-game. Picking up a new weapon or driving a new vehicle for the first time will add it to the player's collection at any supply point.

The game features the "Skills for Kills" system as found in previous games, in which killing enemies with different tools and finding pickups hidden throughout the city award the player with orbs, which increase the player's core skills – agility, firearms, strength, explosives, and driving. Each time a skill levels up, the player unlocks an additional maneuver or item related to that skill, such as ground-pounding by leveling up strength, or double-jumping by leveling up agility. Agility Orbs, Rooftop Races, Driving Rings, and Road Races are also located throughout the city, all of which will increase the related skill upon collection or completion; Hidden Orbs can be found as well, and will increase all of the player's skills at once.

Ten years after the events of Crackdown 2, a massive terrorist attack from an unknown source cuts electrical power around the entire world. The Agency is thrust back into action after the attack is traced to the city of New Providence, controlled by the mysterious but sinister corporation TerraNova, led by Elizabeth Niemand; New Providence is the only city that still has power. The player characters - super-powered Agents - are called into the field by Agency Director Charles Goodwin (Michael McConnohie) and led by Commander Isaiah Jaxon (Terry Crews) to drop into New Providence and dismantle Terra Nova any way they can. As Jaxon briefs the agents of their mission, their drop ship is attacked by TerraNova, resulting in the deaths of everyone on board.

Echo, a member of the New Providence rebel group known as the Militia, recovers the remains of one of the agents and regenerates them. Heavily outnumbered by TerraNova's forces, Echo enlists the agent's help in fighting back by dismantling TerraNova's infrastructure - Logistics, Science, and Enforcement. As the agent fights TerraNova, they discover that the Science branch of TerraNova has been mining a mysterious green mineral called Chimera, which Goodwin deduces is responsible for the power outage - Chimera reportedly consumes electrical power. The agent also investigates the mysterious disappearance of many New Providence citizens, discovering they have been kidnapped by TerraNova in an attempt to brainwash and create an army of genetically enhanced super-soldiers. Audio logs found throughout the game allow the agent to learn the existence of an anonymous client who reportedly paid TerraNova to perform there.

Crackdown 3 was announced at Microsoft's press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014 in June 2014, as an Xbox One exclusive. While the game was still at an early stage at the time of its reveal, Microsoft's Phil Spencer said that the title came about from talks with Dave Jones who, after leaving Realtime Worlds, joined Cloudgine, a software company that is developing technology allowing game developers to take advantage of cloud computing features. Cloudgine had been previously rumored to be a core part of the Xbox One software, with their software used in a technology demonstration at a Microsoft developer's conference in April 2014, demonstrating the use of cloud computing to speed up the physics modeling and rendering in a fully destructible city environment. Spencer revealed that the demo world was the start of this newest Crackdown title, with ability to destroy any part of the city expected to be carried over to the final game.

According to Spencer, Cloudgine would help to develop the core engine, while Reagent Games, a studio located in close proximity to Cloudgine also founded by Jones, would develop the gameplay and art assets for the game, with Sumo Digital developing the game's campaign mode and Crackdown 2 developers Ruffian Games (credited as "Elbow Rocket") developing the multiplayer. Microsoft Studios' creative director Ken Lobb asserted that the game would only be called Crackdown instead of Crackdown 3, stating that the game is set in the future of the first game but represents an alternate timeline from what Crackdown 2 provided. However, this was changed in 2019 prior to release, making the third installment take place a decade after the second one.

Crackdown 3 received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received weak approval, being recommended by 18% of critics.

IGN noted the lack of innovation stating, "Crackdown 3 delivers on what made the original an enjoyable game, but never much more." Destructoid was also disappointed with the evolution of the series and wrote, "Crackdown 3 is a good Crackdown game, which, unfortunately, doesn't mean much anymore. Modern game design has surpassed the Crackdown model by leaps and bounds". EGMNow wrote of the game, "It's a blast when you just feel like zoning out, hunting orbs, jumping across rooftops, and blowing up bad guys" and closed by saying, "It's good, solid fun, but it's not going to completely revolutionize the industry."